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  • knitwitt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22·
    6 days ago

    Fiona Dourif did a fantastic job portraying Bart in this show. If being clean shaven is how they wanted to appear on screen, I think their right to do so supersedes any obligation they have to ‘normalize’ anything for anyone else. It certainly did not harm the performance.

    • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      32·
      6 days ago

      I’m not criticizing their performance or their individual choices.

      I’m criticizing how the media wants to portray women as completely hairless all of the time.

      • knitwitt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        6 days ago

        The media is made up of individuals with their own choices or autonomy. It’s fair to say “I wish this got more representation in media” but it’s entity unfair to criticise specific individuals for not upholding a specific standard. The original premise was “what if being clean shaven was her choice?” in which case it would be nobody’s place to hold that against her.

        • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          32·
          6 days ago

          Women being hairless is a manufactured media campaign. We are born with hair, we grow hair, hair on women is natural. The prevalence of showing women as hairless below our eyebrows is a deliberate choice and it is not simply down to individual preferences.

          • knitwitt@lemmy.worldEnglish
            23·
            6 days ago

            Again, nobody has an obligation to change their body for the sake of normalizing a certain beauty standard. If the actor doesn’t want to grow out it’s their right not to do so. You can’t criticise individuals for industry trends.

            Applaud diversity when you see it, but don’t critisise people just for being themselves.

            • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              22·
              6 days ago

              I didn’t criticize their individual choice.

              I am criticizing the media for only showing women as hairless.

              Do I need to explain this again in different words for you to understand I’m not attacking the actresses’ personal choice?

              Subsequent ad campaigns of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s worked hard to rebrand armpit hair and leg hair as the enemy, pushing prepubescent bareness as the American ideal, along with toxic depilatory creams like “Sheer" (which contained mercury and bromine) and Koremlu, which contained a now-banned chemical — a rodenticide! — known to cause neuromuscular damage and blindness.

              Those advertising campaigns paid off when silk and nylon shortages during World War II made stockings a luxury and bare legs a necessity. A widely-cited stat suggests that by 1964, a staggering 98% of American women were routinely shaving their legs. Today, the global market for hair removal products and services is a impressive $5.42 billion.

              Though some feminists of the ’60s flaunted armpit and leg hair as a political statement, the demand for hairless bodies only grew more intense over time. In the 1980s and ’90s, the “the Brazilian,” an especially painful practice of using wax to remove some or all pubic hair, became popular. Millions got on board, including in Europe, where a 2018 Belgian study found that 80% of women reported removing at least some of their pubic hair. The increased pressure to be fuzz-free sometimes resulted in fierce reactions — ranging from shock and disgust to ridicule and mockery — for those who didn’t comply. (You may recall images of Julia Roberts lifting her arm to wave at fans at the 1999 “Notting Hill” premiere. The backlash was not cute.)

              “Women often don’t realize how much friends, family and society weigh in on what we do with our body,” Breanne Fahs, a professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University told CNN in a 2020 interview. “Often, what we think is a choice — as in ‘I choose to shave’ — has actually been…enforced upon us for generations.”

              Here, some reading for you

              • knitwitt@lemmy.worldEnglish
                22·
                6 days ago

                When EggInDisguise suggests that it may be personal choice and you chime in to say that representation matters as a response, it sort of comes across like you don’t think the actor’s preferences matter over the end goal of changing the media landscape.

                • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  32·
                  6 days ago

                  This is a produced television show. Nothing the actress is wearing is her choice in the show.

                  I will fight tooth and nail for anyone to choose how they present their body. I don’t care if people shave or don’t shave.

                  I do care about how the media presents women and the affect it has on how society expects women to look and behave.

                  • knitwitt@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    11·
                    6 days ago

                    Assuming that actors literally have no choice at all is a bit short sighted. The original premise of the whole thread was ‘what if that’s just their preference’?